Peter J Carroll

“The most original, and probably the most important, writer on Magick since Aleister Crowley."
Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy.

Peter Carroll began his career in Magic at London University where the Chemistry proved so tedious that he settled on a pass degree in that and an unauthorized first in Magic, with Liber Null & Psychonaut emerging as his postgraduate thesis over the next several years whilst teaching high school science.

He then set off around the world wandering in the Himalayas, building boats in India and Australia and seeking out unusual people.

Then after a stay in Yorkshire, he headed back to the Himalayas for a while again before returning to settle in the west of England to found a family and a magical order. Appalled by the compromises made by so many magi to make a living out of their writing or teaching, Carroll decided to make his fortune with a natural products business so that he could write and teach only what had value and interest for him.

He maintains a personal website at specularium.org and acts as Chancellor to Arcanorium College arcanoriumcollege.com.

  • Past Grandmaster of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros

  • Chancellor of Arcanorium College

  • Acting Marshall, Knights of Chaos

  • A Bard of Dobunni Grove

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Firstly, Hail Dave!

Prime Minister UK, David Cameron, who has always seemed like a decent sort of chap and done nothing stupid so far, displays both statesmanship and tactical genius with his EU referendum proposals.

Vote for me and I’ll try and negotiate a more sensible deal with the EU and then we’ll have a referendum on the results.

He says he will campaign to keep us in, but of course he has left himself room and reason to change his mind if we don’t get a sensible deal.

He has wrong-footed the continental euro-federalists, for other nations will plainly join us in demands for reform.

So Britain can now either put the EU right or leave it. Splendid.

Cameron has also taken the wind out of UKIP’s sails for the time being. They have done a fair job of forcing this matter into the open, but they will probably always remain essentially a pressure group. Nevertheless I hope they stay in the game to prevent any backsliding on the renegotiation and the referendum.

The leaders of the illiberal dimocrats and the dreary spendthrift labour party don’t seem to have anything of substance to respond with. They effortlessly confirm their caricatures as a pair of whingeing twerps perhaps better employed as sociology lecturers at some obscure polytechnic.

We could end up with an EU that reverts to its original writ, as a free trade zone, in which case we should stay in it; or we could end up with an EU that develops into a full blown Non-Democratic Synarchist Totalitarianism, in which case we should not only leave it but also strive to destroy it.

In the meantime we need to prevent the vast influx of Bulgarians and Romanians into the UK that EU rules will allow next year. I’m sure they are all delightful people, but our housing stock, our benefits system, and our labour market cannot accommodate them. Neither can those countries afford to loose a whole generation of their younger, more mobile and ambitious people.  

 

 

 

Secondly, a Poem. Two years into Bardic studies and rhyme and rhythm still elude me, but here goes anyway……….

 

Snow

I awoke a bit early, it seemed strangely bright

And quiet, so quiet, an odd muted hush

Its happened its happened

I can hardly believe it

The ground seemed too warm the previous evening

But my gardens become a fantasy scene

And I feel like a child again

Sparkeling whiteness and patches of gloom

Brightness vies with the shadows of doom

It looks so fragile in its parts

Yet so awesome in its extent

Blanketing the lawns, the sheds, the car

All up the trees, over the hills and far away

Its eight miles to work and I don’t have to go

What the heck, any excuse to go and see this

On Henbury Hill I begin to have doubts

Its cold with a full facial blizzard

Vehicles aslew and abandoned

Driver’s curses and screaming engines

Made soft whispers by the whiteness

Falcondale oh Falcondale

Thy slopes make mockery of transport

Shadenfreude, I have good boots

But they have lousy tyres

They slip and they skid

And they bash their panels and lights

Residents set up tripods and cameras

To immortalise the folly forever

Then up on the Downs its so very pretty

When its all black and white

You notice the things you didn’t before

And the pavements are full for once

With chatty people and their children

Saying hello and helping each other

Its Blitz Spirit time

And we’re all having fun

Then down by the uni

Post modernist snowmen

Traditional snowball fights

Then down Christmas steps

We cling to the shopfronts

‘Gainst treacherous slush and the ice

It feels like holiday at work

We few, we happy few, that made it in

Getting home was a bastard

Uphill in now greying mush

But the weekend awaits

A walk in the woods on Saturday morn

My dog seems perplexed

Maybe stuff looses its smell under snow

But the woods look pure magic now

Stark trees hold impossible burdens

With patient sombre dignity

In the cold still air

Even the birdsong goes strangely quiet

White silence pervades like holiness.